Cyber Coolies....Glorified Clerks.....Give me a break!

Reader Discretion advised: The views of the following article are my own. Rather than being targeted at a particular segment, this is a generalized opinion. There is no intention whatsoever to disturb any particular sentiments, but rather to provoke a healthy debate among the student community. I have written from an unbiased point of view. If sometimes the articles tends to ramble off track and there is a lack of professional touch, blame it on my passion for my ilk and my relative less exposure in professional writing(in fact, none).


I was reading about a certain segment of Indian MBA's being treated by so called KPO's as cyber coolies. This made me wonder where had we come, and where we are heading to in this hyper booming economy of ours. Talking to a senior friend of mine who is working for a KPO of a global renowned MNC, I realized how utterly dissatisfied he is with the job and how his other colleagues in some different sectors are feeling the same. With all due respects for all the professions, I want to analyze the underlying factors, rather than criticize what is happening, as I am no authority on directing whom to choose what jobs. Also, this is in no way related to KPO or other services in particular, but rather aims to have a bird's eye view of the current situation.

This brings me back to the ramblings of my mind today....Why the MBA's and other qualified professionals are being treated as cyber coolies, or more generally, as Glorified Clerks by some western media?? Why are we made to do the "load carrying" stuff, and why are we not motivated to actuate our cerebrum neurons to brainstorm our way through a problem?

To me, the situation can be analyzed in three parts:

Part 1: The underlying cause: There is no dearth of brilliant and data crunching professionals in the developed world. But with the highly developed social security systems and profession/labor related laws, the cheaper cousins of the third world and developing, English speaking countries(read India, Philippines, Russia, Brazil etc) become a lucrative option. Thus begins the task of outsourcing the "less mentally taxing, more clerically oriented" to these "rapidly developing countries", who are more than willing to share the load of their bigger, developed cousins and keep this massive global economic engine chugging along....A school of thought say that we are closely modeling after the US economy of the 70's, taking into stride our rapidly changing social and cultural fabric. Agreed, to a greater extent.....but what are we losing in the process.....

Part 2: Complementing factors:

Factor 1: The highly aspirational youth and an equally supportive Services sector: The main protagonist of our story today is the Indian youth who is highly aspirational and looks upon the world as a signal of her/his arrival. The desire to take on the world and live a better life is stronger today than in the past. This fuels a need to earn more, much more than their parents used to be at their age. Now traditional sectors will grow at their own pace (read manufacturing). But services have really shot up in the last one and a half decades and bye passed the manufacturing to make India a services hub. Add to this the rapid rise of IT in the services and the same youth who thinks of earning more and more has suddenly got a divine gift. So, now we have the highly aspirational youth earning more.

Factor 2: The overall development of the Indian education: Yes, we all saw that coming. The education system in our country is a deep culprit in where we stand today in the level of our professions as MBA's as compared to our western counterparts. Amir Khaan starrer 'Taare Zameen Par' was completely right when it blamed the overall system of education and social setup to stifle the creativity and original thinking in the Indian child and force learn by rote on her/him. Is it any wonder that the country which produces more PhD's than any other country in the world is still deprived of Nobel Prizes!! (Apart from a few far and betweens one)
The outsourcing industry has a perfect collaborator in the form of a poor and vision lacking education system of India, which results in the production of a massive amount of "clerical oriented" professionals, or rather bluntly, graduates who can compile reports, prepare excels, type their where-they-sit-upon off and at the end of the day, are content to shop at Shoppers Stop and eat at the McDonald's, with a monthly home loan installment, Bike/Car installment and a pair of dreamy eyes, which want to realize the "Great Indian Dream"!

Is this exactly what we, the youth of the nation really wanted. Had we been given a raw deal by the planners and the leaders of India. Lack of good teachers only exacerbates the problem. I am talking particularly about the Indian MBA segment of the youth, but my argument is equally applicable to all other streams of professions, be it CA's, Engineers and or Doctors. Beat the defense forces, which could be an ideal job for many if it had paid well enough to the aspirational youth. Even if talk about Indian Finance scene, as my professor in IMT-G quoted once, "there is still no finance per se in India. Only accounts!"
Anyways, this brings us the third complementing factor...

Factor 3: The Indian MBA rush: There is a greater rush towards the MBA than ever before. Adding to this are the coaching institutes and media, tom tomming the massive packages MBA's command and the rising prestige in the social setup (what with the dowry rates reaching that of an IAS for MBA's from IIM's and other top B schools). Add to this the general and ever prevalent government apathy towards the infrastructure building (Yeah Yeah...we know you guys built IIM's....so big deal!! for a country having second largest population in the world and growing at almost 10% !!!) So, to capitalize on the opportunity galore, private players with no greater interest than their own have decided to take on from the government (which is very very busy appeasing the rural India, managing Left and preparing for next General elections, to sit up and look at what is happening at the specialized education front). Now the lack of vision and will on the private front has resulted in mushrooming of large no. of MBA institutes, but having below par standards of teaching. This has caused a surplus of the average, but a dearth of quality MBA's in the country.
Now, we look at the toughest entrance exam in the country, CAT. Though all "self righteous" second year MBA students like me will surely agree that the CAT is not the best option, but a necessary one in the country of million aspirants. So the students who get in are brilliant, but more on the analytical and number crunching side. There is a section on Verbal ability, but that alone cant guarantee you the wisdom and the common sense, coupled with a thinking brain that an MBA needs. I may exceed my limits here in saying that 70% of the MBA's in top B schools are bent on mugging the class notes and devouring Economic Times, rather than "THINK". I may be wrong, but how do we explain the massive rush of KPO's offering hefty salaries to the MBA's then, capitalizing on the Forex arbitrage.

Part 3: The Way out: Yeah yeah....there goes me, the self proclaimed messiah of the Indian MBA's.....Well...the raison d'etre of this post was the anguished and tormented part of my self on reading that article about the MBA's becoming the global cyber coolies. The way out according to me in the short term is for the MBA students to think and develop original problem solving capabilities.

Being assertive and having skills will be the only solution from being packed in the rat race. There is no doubt that many Indian MBA's have created wealth and many more are globally recognized for their problem solving skills and capabilities. But talking about the whole MBA segment of students, there are many steps needed to be taken, more actively from Government. (if not actively, then at least by abolishing archaic land acquisition, tax and other hurdles in opening quality MBA schools by visionary Private players and granting more autonomy to existing University B schools)